


The Plan

by alittlelesspain



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-20 23:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16564844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesspain/pseuds/alittlelesspain
Summary: Later, it will strike Mildred in hindsight that the fact that even Enid had doubts about the plan, should have clued her in that something might be off. On the other hand, no Hubble had ever let common sense get in the way of a good idea.(In which Mildred is the most earnest little ally, and she observes certain things about Miss Hardbroom and Miss Pentangle, that lead her to a completely erroneous conclusion. And yet, somehow, she still might end up bringing together two women who have misunderstood their feelings for each other for over thirty years.)





	The Plan

**Part I: Mildred**

 

It all starts, as a surprising amount of noteworthy events do at Cackle’s these days, with Mildred Hubble and a Potions exam.

* * *

 

“Remedial potions?” Mildred blinks up at Miss Hardbroom, who had delivered the information without betraying a hint of emotion on her face. “You want me to take after-school classes with you?”

“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself, Mildred Hubble,” Miss Hardbroom says, “You will come to my office twice a week after your last lessons are done, and we shall see if we can improve the disastrous grade you got on your last Potions exam. Is that understood?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Mildred mumbles, although that isn’t quite true, really. Between her lack of preparation, and the fact that she had been fighting off a flu the night before the exam, she’s managed to score a grade that can comfortably serve as the dictionary definition of ‘abysmal’.

“It was a disaster,” Miss Hardbroom says, her eyes narrowing. “We will start tomorrow. I hope you know better than to be late. Now, dismissed.”

Mildred gulps, and escapes the classroom, feeling rather relieved. When Miss Hardbroom had asked to see her after class, she had dreaded the meeting with much the same fear others would have upon approaching the guillotine. After-school lessons are bad, but not as bad as HB exploding at her for the thousandth time, about handing in “shoddy and subpar work that I wouldn’t even expect from the first years, let alone a senior, Mildred Hubble.”

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that her friends don’t quite see eye to eye on the matter.

“Remedial lessons? For two whole nights a week with HB?” Enid asks in disbelief, when Mildred tells her the news. “She’ll murder you after the first month!”

“Millie, that’s wonderful!” Maud says, right on top of Enid, which causes the other two to look at her like she’s grown an extra head. “It must mean Miss Hardbroom really cares how you do.”

Mildred frowns. “I don’t know. I can’t help feeling that Miss Pentangle had something to do with it. I told her how far behind I was falling in Potions, when she visited us the last time, and she told me she’d do something about it, see? Only, she didn’t tell me what.”

“You think HB listens to Miss Pentangle?” Enid asks. “I don’t think she’d listen to the Grand Wizard himself, if she could manage it.”

“I don’t know,” Mildred says, putting away the book she’d been frowning over, the one that Miss Hardbroom had given her, with strict instructions to read the first two chapters before the first lesson. “We’ll just have to wait and see if it works out, I think.”

* * *

 

The thing is, it turns out that the lessons do help.

Oh, they’re deadly dull sometimes, but Miss Hardbroom isn’t as sharp with her as she used to be, and even the dullest reading ends up teaching Mildred some sorely lacking background knowledge about the witching world and its traditions.

She learns something other than her lessons, too, during these classes. Namely, that Miss Pentangle seems to visit Miss Hardbroom quite often after school, discreetly showing up in her office multiple times a week. Mildred stares the first time this happens, and Miss Pentangle stares right back at her, looking both surprised and apprehensive, while Miss Hardbroom suddenly turns very unreadable.

Somehow, though, the visits don’t seem so improbable, and Mildred gets used to them very quickly. Without ever really discussing it, the three of them work out an arrangement, where Mildred works on her lessons in Miss Hardbroom’s office whenever Miss Pentangle visits, while the two teachers converse on the adjoining balcony outside, with Miss Hardbroom transferring in occasionally to give Mildred instructions.

During one such visit, Mildred stares down at the spell on the page that she’s supposed to be memorizing, trying to ignore the murmurs coming from the balcony. The supposedly simple locking spell is just as elusive now, after her twelfth or so attempt at mastering it, as it had been the first time around. Mildred groans as the words start to swim around the page, from her staring at them so hard. Then, she peeks guiltily at the window again, where the outlines of Miss Pentangle and Miss Hardbroom can just about be seen through the curtains, as they lean against the balcony railing.

The thing is, her lessons seem to coincide more and more often these days with Miss Pentangle’s visits, and Mildred doesn’t think it’s by design. Miss Pentangle just seems to drop by so often these days, that it’s more probable to find her with Miss Hardbroom after classes, than not. Mildred has some unformed - and unproven, so far - ideas as to why this could be, though she hasn’t quite dared to voice them to anyone else.

And yet, if the two of them are going to continue playing this out right in front of her... Mildred looks furtively around the room, and then - with the healthy suicidal urge to meddle that she’s always been blessed with - tiptoes to the window and peeks through the curtains.

Outside, Miss Pentangle seems to be getting ready to take her leave. Just as she lifts up her broom, she murmurs something, and Mildred blinks with surprise, as Miss Hardbroom actually smiles at hearing it. Which makes Miss Pentangle laugh, which makes Miss Hardbroom smile even more, which makes Mildred blink in further disbelief.

And then, as she usually does at the end of her visits, Miss Pentangle reaches up to kiss Miss Hardbroom, once on each cheek. Except, this time, just as she leans up, Mildred can see Miss Hardbroom turning resolutely away, her face solemn again.

“Pippa,” Mildred hears Miss Hardbroom say, her voice softer than she’s ever heard it, “You cannot. Please, stop.”

Mildred watches, wide-eyed, as Miss Pentangle’s face falls, although it’s smoothed back out into a smile by the time Miss Hardbroom looks back at her. Then, she murmurs something, gives Miss Hardbroom a hug instead, and sets off on her broom. Miss Hardbroom looks up at the sky after her, and the expression on her face looks a lot like the one on the wounded puppy that Mildred and her mum had found on the streets last summer.

* * *

 

 

The whole thing confuses Mildred, and as she does with most things that confuse her, she talks it over with Maud and Enid, later that night.

“So, Miss Pentangle tried to kiss her goodbye on the cheek, and Miss Hardbroom moved away?” Enid asks, as if to recount. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know.” Mildred chews her lips. “There was something... odd, about how it happened.”

There had been something in Miss Hardbroom’s expression, when she had rebuffed Miss Pentangle. You could tell she didn’t really want to. You could tell she wanted the exact opposite.

“You can’t have seen them very clearly, Millie,” Maud says, patting her arm.

Mildred frowns. She had definitely seen the disappointed sadness on Miss Petangle’s face, too, when she’d been snubbed. “You don’t think that Miss Hardbroom was, I don’t know, asking Miss Pentangle to keep quiet about it, do you?”

Enid gives her an odd look, over the top of the comic book that she’s reading. “What do you mean by that? Keeping quiet about what?”

“Well, Miss Hardbroom... she’s a bit,” Mildred says, before pausing, “I mean, she didn’t even like seeing me hugging Miss Pentangle in front of her, when they first made up. Maybe she just doesn’t want people knowing that they’re... well, together.”

There’s a silence when those words land, and then-

“But, we don’t even know if they’re together,” Maud says, looking confused.

“What else could it be?” Mildred asks. “Miss Pentangle visits her all the time. She comes over just about every night now, I think.”

“Even if you’re right, why do you care what old HB is up to?” Enid asks, not even bothering to look away from her comic, this time.

“I’m not!” Mildred says, maybe a little over-defensively. It makes Enid direct another odd glance at her.

Maud just pats her arm again, reassuringly.

“Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s nothing,” she says, “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Millie.”

So Mildred subsides, and the whole thing should have stopped there, if not for the second strange incident that happens a couple of weeks later.

* * *

 

 

The second incident takes place over the weeklong midterm break. With Enid and Maud off to visit their family, and her own mother away caring for a sick aunt, Mildred resigns herself to staying at Cackle’s for the week, with rather more free time on her hands than she knows what to do with.

But, just then, Miss Hardbroom triples the amount of her lessons for the week without warning, adding in a practical component that has Mildred running all over the school grounds and surrounding woods, gathering various potion ingredients that she’s directed to find. Between the readings and the running around, she’s so busy that she doesn’t even find time to miss her mum or her friends.

On Thursday night - on Halloween as it happens - Mildred returns from an excursion to the pond, carrying the wolfsbane that she had been sent out to find, when she finds the door to Miss Hardbroom’s office locked. When three sets of knocks on the door go unanswered, Mildred shifts from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do. Knowing her luck, just keeping the wolfsbane in her room for the night would lead to some disaster or other. 

Coming to a decision, she trots out of the teachers’ tower, and down to the gardens that surround the school. Aside from the common areas that the students are allowed to work in, there's a greenhouse sequestered right at the edge, where Miss Hardbroom keeps the more dangerous plants that she needs for her potions. Mildred has learned that she can reliably be found there, working away, on most nights when she's not in her office.

She rounds the last of the common grounds and heads for the greenhouse, ready to call out Miss Hardbroom's name, when the words choke in her throat. Silently, Mildred retreats back into the shadows, staring bug-eyed at the scene in front of her.

Kneeling at the edge of the garden, with their right hands clasped forearm to forearm and bound together by some sort of twine, are Miss Hardbroom and Miss Pentangle. They're kneeling right under the full moon, and Millie can see their lips moving, though they're too far away for her to make any words out.

Heart hammering, Mildred eases a few more steps backwards, until she judges that she's out of even Miss Hardbroom's formidable hearing, and then runs at a breakneck pace all the way back to her room, all thoughts of wolfsbanes and potions forgotten.

* * *

Mildred practically explodes from having to keep to herself the knowledge of what she had witnessed, with neither Maud nor Enid around to confess to. As soon as the two return the following week, though, the news floods out of her all in a rush, before the other two have even fully unpacked their bags.

"It was a handfasting ceremony!" she exclaims, almost bouncing on her bed with excitement, as Maud and Enid stare at her. "I read about it in one of the books Miss Hardbroom assigned me."

"But, not many families do that anymore," Maud says, squinting in confusion, as she folds away her clothes. "Are you sure that's what you saw, Millie?"

"They were kneeling right in the middle of the garden," Mildred says. "I couldn't hear them, but they were definitely reciting something to each other, and they each had their right forearm bound together with some kind of green rope."

"Plant vines," Maud corrects her. "God, you're really sure it was them?"

"Of course it was," Mildred says, annoyed. "I could definitely make out their faces."

"Hang on," Enid says slowly, and screws up her face at the ceiling, as she sprawls on the floor of Mildred's room, as if trying to remember something. "You remember when I snuck out to go see my mum's show last month, and came back after Cackle's had locked down for the night?"

"Yes," Mildred says, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, I was hiding out in the gardens that night," Enid says, "And I happened to glance at the roof of the teachers' tower, and Miss Pentangle was there on her broom. HB was handing her two kittens, and Miss Pentangle smiled at her, and then she flew off with them!"

She looks around at their confused faces.

"Well, isn't that one of those old witching traditions from the continent, where you give your bride kittens before the wedding? I could swear my mum told me something like that."

"I'm not sure," Maud says. "I don't remember my parents telling me anything about that."

"Still," Enid says, mulishly. "Why else would Miss Pentangle need cats for? They use owl familiars at Pentangle's, don't they?"

"That's true," Mildred says, frowning. "Why do you think they're keeping so quiet about it?"

Maud looks puzzled. "But, I can't see Miss Pentangle keeping a secret to save her life. Remember when Miss Cackle asked for her help with organizing the Yule party last year, and she let slip who your Secret Santa was, Millie?"

"She was doing me a favour, really, seeing as Ethel was my Santa," Mildred says, wrinkling up her nose. "And anyways, I think she  _ would _ keep a secret, if Miss Hardbroom asked her to. And maybe Miss Hardbroom doesn't want people to find out because she's... well, shy or something."

"Shy?" Enid looks at her like she's off her head. " _ HB?" _

"Well, something like that," Mildred says hurriedly, "I mean, she's very traditional, isn't she? Maybe she thinks it's not right to flaunt it about."

"And what can we do about that?" Enid asks, "That's their business, isn't it?"

"We need to show them it's fine!" Mildred says, "My mum had this talk with me before. Sometimes, people can be afraid when they love someone. She told me that you have to encourage them, and show them that it's okay to be themselves!"

And if Mildred has been having those sort of thoughts herself, if her heart had leapt a little at the sight of Miss Hardbroom and Miss Pentangle so close together, smiling at each other, well, she figures that's something to sort out for another day.

"I don't know, Millie," Maud pitches in, still looking doubtful. "You know how Miss Hardbroom can get."

"She's got a point," Enid says, "I already have detention lined up for all of next month, for the sneaking out. My parents might be called in, if I get any more."

Later, it will strike Mildred in hindsight that the fact that even Enid had doubts about the plan, should have clued her in that something might be off. On the other hand, no Hubble had ever let common sense get in the way of a good idea.

"We need to do something," she says decisively, now, clapping her hands together. "We need to show them that it's okay to be open around us!"

* * *

Mildred reserves one of the large break rooms in the common area for The Plan, giving Miss Cackle an excuse about needing it to organize the Yule Party.

On the evening that The Plan is due to be executed, she walks the entire length of the room, ensuring that the curtains are shut, and that everything they need is in working order, before stalking back to the center, like a general after having surveyed his troops. Her troops being the two other people currently occupying the room.

"Enid, will Miss Pentangle be here on time?" 

"Aye, aye Captain," Enid says, giving Mildred a mock salute, "I got Felicity to ask her for an interview. She should be here in two minutes sharp."

"Great!" Mildred turns to Maud. "Maud, is the exploding potion ready?"

Maud places a beaker of dangerously bubbling liquid on the table.

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea, Millie," she says, looking apprehensively at the door, and back at the potion.

"It's just the three of us," Mildred says. "I just want to make them feel a little more welcome, is all."

"We're dead meat if this backfires," Enid murmurs in a sing-song voice, "Oh well, I'm sure Mum and Dad can find me a new boarding school somewhere on the continent that I haven't been expelled from, yet."

"No time to turn back now," Mildred says, briskly, as she consults her watch. "It's time, isn't it?"

She looks up, takes a deep breath, and waves her hand at the beaker. It explodes in a huge plume of smoke and noise. 

Like clockwork, Miss Hardbroom transfers in, her gaze lasering in on the broken glassware littering the table.

" _ What _ is going on here, girls?" she bites out, just as the door to the room opens, and Miss Pentangle walks in.

"Girls! Hecate!" Miss Pentangle looks surprised. "I thought I was supposed to meet Felicity Foxglove here, for her blog."

"Um..." Mildred frantically windmills her arms at Enid, who has snuck up behind the teachers.

Enid pulls a rope tied to a bucket positioned above the door. There's a pop, and an explosion of flower petals shower over Miss Hardbroom and Miss Pentangle. Almost at the same time, Maud heaves at another rope at the back of the room, and a banner unfurls over the wall there, reading HAPPY HANDFASTING!

"Surprise!" Mildred exclaims, right into the gobsmacked faces of the two teachers.

* * *

 

 

Mildred immediately realizes that something is wrong. Miss Pentangle's face is entirely blank, not the poker face that she gets when she's trying really hard to hide something, but just pure bafflement. Meanwhile, Miss Hardbroom's initially surprised face is quickly morphing into a thundercloud.

"Mildred. Hubble. What. Is. The. Meaning. Of. This."

Mildred gulps. Each word lands like a tombstone sliding over a grave, probably her own. 

"Surprise?" she tries again. "We just wanted to, um... congratulate you on your h-... your engagement?"

"Uh-oh," she hears Maud whisper, from behind her.

Miss Hardbroom looks so furious now, Mildred is surprised that sparks aren't shooting out of her eyes. Miss Pentangle still looks blank, although her mouth is slightly open, as if understanding is dawning.

"Oh dear," she says, eventually.

"You don't have to hide it from us!" Mildred bursts out. "I can see why you're hesitant, with the Code being what it is, but we're happy for you, we really are! We just wanted you to know that."

"Happy for us for what exactly?" Miss Hardbroom asks. 

Mildred realizes that she might be in very hot water indeed. And yet, it’s too late to turn back now.

"Um, the handfasting ceremony," she says, "I saw you, in the garden."

Miss Hardbroom and Miss Pentangle exchange looks, where the former looks marginally less murderous and the latter looks downright confused, before a lightbulb seems to go on in both their heads.

"This wouldn't have been on All Hallow's Eve, would it?" Miss Pentangle asks, and waits for Mildred's eager nod. "Oh girls, Miss Hardbroom needed my help with a fortifying spell for Cackle's. It can only be done by two people with their magic working in concert. Being bound by the root of plants grown in the soil of the school grounds strengthens the spell."

"There's no need to give them a lesson right now, Pippa," Miss Hardbroom cuts in. "There are more pressing matters to attend to, here."

She turns back to the three students, and Mildred forgets to breathe out of pure terror. 

"I don't know which one of you came up with this silly idea," Miss Hardbroom starts, then puts a hand up as if to stop herself, "No, I know exactly who came up with this. Mildred Hubble-"

"But, the kittens!" Enid says, from behind Mildred. "Miss Hardbroom, you gifted her kittens, as bridal gifts!"

Next to her, Mildred can feel Maud freeze and go utterly silent, as if trying not to even breathe, just in case it turns Miss Hardbroom's attention to her.

"Darlings," Miss Pentangle says, and her voice is quiet now, a curious mix of exasperation and sadness, "We've been having a bit of problem with mice at Pentangle's. I asked for Hecate's help in finding me some good mousers, that's all."

"Oh," Mildred says, even quieter.

"Oh?" Miss Hardbroom echoes. "Is that all you have to say for yourself, Mildred Hubble?  _ Oh _ ?" 

"But, Miss Pentangle, you kiss her all the time, when you visit!" Mildred says. Some part of her head, the part where the non-suicidal brain cells are stored, is screaming at her to stop, but another part - the part to which self-preservation is just a long word from the unfamiliar part of the dictionary - steamrolls right on. "And Miss Hardbroom, the last time you said... you told her-"

She trails off, because suddenly Miss Hardbroom's face isn't angry anymore, it's just stony and cold, and Miss Pentangle looks momentarily devastated.

"You don't need to remind me of my own words, silly girl." Miss Hardbroom's voice is as cold as her face. "Miss Pentangle has her habits, and they're well-known to everyone, I’m sure. You have misunderstood a simple parting kiss as something more. Now, enough. I cannot begin to overemphasize how far over the line you have stepped, with this ridiculous prank."

"Hecate," Miss Pentangle murmurs, reaching a hand out to touch Miss Hardbroom's arm, as if in a calming fashion.

But, Miss Hardbroom recoils from the touch like a struck cat, and her glare turns frightening again, as she bears down on Mildred, Maud and Enid.

Then, to their shock, she seems to pull herself inwards, with tectonic force, and turns around, stiff as an automaton, before walking out of the door, eerily silent all the while. Every footstep she takes sounds uncannily loud in the pindrop silence of her wake, until she finally vanishes from sight.

"Oh dear," Miss Pentangle looks from the door back to them, seeming sad and confused at once, "I had better go after her. I'd stay out of her way in the near future if I were you, dears."

She leaves, and Mildred lets out the terrified breath that she'd been holding in, staring aghast at the empty space where the teachers had been standing.

"We're dead," Maud says, very quietly, from beside her. "I don't know when, or how, but we're dead."

* * *

**Part II: Hecate**

 

"Detention!" Hecate snarls, as she stalks into her room, Pippa hot on her heels, "I am assigning Mildred Hubble so much detention that she will need to amortize it over her summer vacation!"

"And I suppose the other two are blameless, just led on by Mildred?" Pippa asks sharply, clicking the door shut behind her, before her tone softens. "Hecate, it's clear the girl just made an honest mistake."

Hecate turns on her, furious. For a moment, it looks like Pippa is going to glower back just as fiercely. Then, she looks away and sighs, taking off her gloves and tossing them on the table absentmindedly.

"Darling, I don't think it was a prank. Mildred looked positively horrified."

The 'darling' rankles, coming so soon on the heel of Mildred's idiocy, but what bothers Hecate more is how unconcerned Pippa seems by it all.

"How can you be so calm, Pippa? She made a fool out of us!"

"Not on purpose."

"Does it matter? She still made a spectacle out of her misunderstanding. I've never been so-" Hecate stops.

"So what?" Pippa asks, quietly. 

Hecate studies the table in front of her. 

She remembers the night that Mildred had no doubt been referring to, when Pippa had leant up to kiss her cheek in farewell. It had been routine by then, just something that Pippa did after an evening spent together. And yet, it had been too much all of a sudden, and Hecate had leant away. 

Because, it's just something that Pippa does. She kisses everyone on the cheek, and calls everyone her darling, and generally floats through the world as airily as the candy floss that her outfits often resemble. And yet, somewhere in there, at the edge where pink silk meets a steel core, there's a heart big enough to care for the entire world, including Hecate. Pippa cares for her just as she cares for every other lost child and stray. And therein lies the rub. 

So, Hecate had leant away from the kiss, and murmured something to deter Pippa, and obviously Mildred had overseen it, and - in typical Hubbelian fashion - had made something entirely different out of the scene. 

"So what, Hecate?" Pippa repeats her question.

"So humiliating!" Hecate spits out, because it had been the first word to come to mind, and it's still the word that lingers on the tip of her tongue. 

Humiliating because Mildred had voiced her deepest hopes. Humiliating because some irrational part of Hecate had leapt momentarily, at the fact that someone else had looked at her and Pippa and seen... that. Humiliating because it's not true, and Pippa will never be hers, and Hecate is just going to have to live with that for the rest of her life, just as she's lived with it for the last thirty years.

"Is it really so terrible that someone would think that we're together?" Pippa's voice is light, but there's also something brittle about it, and it stops the caustic reply on the tip of Hecate's tongue.

Because, of course it's not terrible. It's something so wonderful, so improbable, that Hecate can't find suitable words for it, because they would have to be invented for that specific purpose.

Pippa sighs. She looks defeated, and her eyes are overbright. 

"I don't know why I bother, Hecate" she says. "Except, every time I feel like giving up, you smile at me, or just look at me the way you do, and I think there's still hope. That spell, you could have asked any teacher at Cackle's to do it with you, but you asked me instead, and I thought... I thought... And then you say things like this, and I realize I've just been a fool all along!" 

She shakes her head, the words coming quieter and quieter. "Still, I can never stop hoping that, one day, somehow-"

Her voice chokes, and Hecate freezes.

"You," her voice sounds alien to her own ears, something broken, hope shining through the cracks in the usual calmness, "You hoped for- for-"

"Hoped for what?" Pippa finishes her question for her. "You know what, Hecate. I haven't exactly been discreet about it. The only way I could have been more obvious is if I'd mimed out my feelings while dancing naked on a tavern table!"

Well, that idea derails Hecate's thoughts for a few moments, before she manages to get it back on track.

"You couldn't have," she croaks out, "Not for me. Why would someone like you look twice at me?"

And then, it's Pippa's turn to look shocked, as some revelation seems to dawn on her. Her mouth works as she looks at Hecate, as if silent calculations are whirring away behind her frozen mask of a face. Hecate feels naked, entirely exposed, under that stare. 

"Hecate," Pippa says, and the words come out slowly, as if she's still working it all out, "All those years ago, when you stopped being friends with me... it wasn't  _ just  _ because you thought I preferred the company of those silly, social-climbing girls, was it?"

Hecate stares fixedly at the ground, then at the walls, then at the ceiling. When she exhausts directions to look in, she finally looks back at Pippa, who has one hand splayed over her forehead, her eyes closed as if in pain.

"Pippa?" Hecate asks, in some alarm.

Pippa waves her concern away.

"Hecate," she murmurs, "I was going to call you the greatest fool in the country. Then, I realized that would mean admitting that I take second place right behind you, and that Mildred Hubble has managed to be more intelligent than the both of us put together over the past thirty years.”

Hecate, who had stiffened up at the first words, stares as the rest sink in. Something that feels dangerously like hope seeps up her spine, making her unbend.

"But," she starts, "Pippa, you could never want-"

The rest of the words refuse to escape her mouth, because - even now - it’s difficult to make this final concession of her feelings. It's impossible. She's told herself that for thirty years now, has surgically cleaved away every clinging bit of hope until nothing remained. 

"That I couldn't want you?" Pippa asks, looking at her like she's grown a second head. "Hecate, you fool. You beautiful, maddening fool, on what world and in what universe am I capable of not wanting you?"

Hecate stares further.

"You-" And suddenly, there's hope, so much of it, rising through her like a tidal wave. It's like a dam breaks, and Hecate  _ shakes _ with the strength of what it unleashes. "You want  _ me?" _

Pippa is watching her with a teary smile.

"We're idiots," she announces, to the room in general. "We're idiots, and I owe Mildred Hubble the biggest box of chocolates I can find."

Hecate is still shaking when Pippa approaches her, encroaching her personal space slowly, and eyeing Hecate like she's liable to run away any moment. Hecate does feel like transferring away for one wild instant, because it's overwhelming, having this impossible thing come true out of nowhere.

Then, Pippa strokes her cheek, gently, and Hecate  _ feels it,  _ somewhere deep down inside her, past skin and bones.

"Come on," Pippa murmurs, leaning up. "Just meet me halfway. Hecate,  _ please." _

She drags her hand down Hecate's jaw, fingers trailing delicately along the curve of it. The pressure is barely there, and yet Hecate bends, just as Pippa leans up, so their mouths align just so. 

Pippa kisses her softly, like she's still disbelieving that this is allowed to happen. It's Hecate who kisses back harder, every emotion she's held back rising to the surface all at once, now that she finally has Pippa in her arms. They separate only hairbreadths apart for breath, before their mouths eagerly meet again. Hecate sinks into Pippa's tight hold, until every angle of her is pressed against soft curves, her trembling hands tracing soft skin through the silk of Pippa's dress. Pippa's hands travel across her back, and tangle through her hair, holding her securely, as if she means to never let go. Hecate wants exactly that, wants to lose herself in those soft hands and demanding mouth, wants to get so tangled up in the very essence of Pippa that they can never be separated again.

"Love you," Pippa murmurs, when they break apart this time. She trails her mouth, open and hot, over Hecate's cheeks, over the shell of her ear - Hecate shivers at the sudden flick of her tongue - and down her jaw. "Always loved you, how could you not see that?"

"Pippa!" Hecate gasps, clutching her closer.

Pippa just hums in return, pressing a kiss against Hecate's palm, as it caresses her cheek.

"I do love you so," she says. "You darling, oblivious idiot."

When they lean back to take each other in,  Hecate is too overwhelmed to do anything but blink. It's Pippa who tears up. 

"Pippa," Hecate starts, horrified, but Pippa waves her concern away, and smiles through her tears. 

"It's just, I've done that so many times before," she says, "But, I've never felt what it means to do it with someone who actually mattered."

Hecate sighs, and looks down.

“I  _ have _ been an idiot, haven’t I?”

A soft kiss is placed against the side of her lips, and insistent fingers find her chin, tilting her face back up.

“If you are, then I’ve been doing the aiding and abetting for thirty years,” Pippa says, smiling when their gazes meet again. “Thirty years when I could have swallowed my pride anytime, and I didn't."

"The point still stands," Hecate says, because that's thirty years they've lost, now.

Thirty years spent apart, wallowing in misery, when they could have been together. Thirty years when Hecate had cloistered herself inside Cackle's, and Pippa had built Pentangle's on her own. 

"It was worth it," Pippa says, and Hecate realizes that she had said that out loud. "Everything was worth it, Hecate, for you."

Her gaze is thoughtful, as she links her fingers through Hecate's own, and holds her hand in place against her cheek.

"You know, maybe it was a good thing, in a way, that we found each other now, rather than before."

"Nonsense," Hecate says, half-distracted by the feel of flushed skin against her palm.

"Think about it," Pippa insists. "If we'd gotten together when we were younger, there were so many things that could have torn us apart, Hecate. The older I get, the more I realize that popularity and fashion, all those silly competitions we used to have... none of that is important. But,  _ you  _ are. I don't know if we could truly have understood that, when we were younger."

Hecate breathes out a half-laugh.

"You always did know how to put a positive spin on things," she says, before sobering up. "And what now, Pippa?"

Whatever this wonderful new thing between them is, Pippa still has a school to run, and Hecate still has Cackle's, which she's sure will collapse within a week under Mildred Hubble's ministrations, if she's not around. 

"I don't know," Pippa admits. "I've never... oh, I  _ hoped,  _ but I never really thought this could become real."

She strokes Hecate's face absentmindedly, and Hecate can almost see the cogs whirring away again, as that deceptively analytical mind sets to work. 

"You could visit me at Pentangle's for a change, for a few days." Pippa's smile is uncharacteristically shy, maybe even hesitant. "I think you'll enjoy the seashore. I even have a little cottage nearby, where I can put you up in. It could be a start, just to see... well, to see where we could go." 

Hecate eyes her, and sees nothing but sincerity there, aside from the doubt.

"A start," she echoes. "I'd like that." 

Pippa nods, and suddenly laughs.

"What?" Hecate asks.

"It’s a cliche," Pippa says, smiling. "I was just thinking, all’s well that ends well."

“I suppose so,” Hecate says, before her gaze turns determined. "Mildred Hubble and her friends, however, are still getting detention for their tomfoolery."

Pippa sighs, half-fond and half-exasperated.

“Oh,  _ Hecate. _ ”

* * *

(Hecate stays true to her words, and Mildred and Maud and Enid find themselves rounded up for detention the very next evening. But, it's only for one week, and when a pink basket jam-packed with doughnuts suddenly appears in the detention room on the second evening, the three are astonished when Miss Hardbroom merely frowns at the apparition, but doesn't actually vanish it or forbid them from taking any.)

(Mildred sneaks one onto Miss Hardbroom’s desk, when her back is turned away to refill a potion vat.)

(By the next time she looks up from writing her lines, it’s gone.)

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, you mention an idea to a friend in a chat, and then you forget about it. Other times, that idea follows you home and holds you by the throat until you finish writing an entire fic for it. The latter happened here. I wrote this over the span of 24 hours and didn't send it to a beta this time, so all errors are mine, please be forgiving.
> 
> (Mildred's methods are, of course, not entirely wholesome here. She's a budding gay who's taking this a little more personally than she realizes, and she'll learn from this.)


End file.
